


Cruz

by itsalifesjourney



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 11:04:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14079495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsalifesjourney/pseuds/itsalifesjourney
Summary: It wasn't just the summer wind cascading through her hair, in the South Dakota Plains, that took her breath away. /Set in 2011, three years after Undercover./





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost of the original story that was first on svufiction.com, now it is in full on fanfiction.net and will be on here as well as soon as I edit and rewrite some parts. It's currently being reposted on the revived svufic.com as well for anyone interested.

**Cruz by ItsALifesJourney**

**Chapter 1: Stream**

She rests more these days.

In fact, she's resting her weary body along the comforting porch swing when a timid evening breeze cascades around her. The fabric of her dress rustles against her body and the gentle waves sound like the stream she often dreams about.

As the dress billows around her, her legs dangle off the edge of the seat and she listens to the low moans of the porch as the swing slowly undulates back and forth.

Her mind sends her back in time involuntarily, to a time when all she could hear was the slamming of doors in the apartments around hers, the sirens outside her bedroom window, the incessant cacophony of horns, engines and people chattering in the streets below.

She doesn't even see the silver and gold glow of city lights through her bedroom window from the flickering street lamps. Sometimes she misses the red, yellow and green glimmer from the stop lights around the corner from her building…. old building.

She opens her eyes slightly, noticing the darkening oranges of dusk sifting between the cotton clouds, realizing that her predilection with lights guiding her has now been thrust upon the nature around her.

She now tells herself when to stop, when to slow down, and when to go. Perhaps, she'd even began repeating this mantra the day she'd decided to disappear into the shadows of Manhattan's smog filled coma of echoes.

It's in that moment that the cicadas grow louder and she allows her mind to drift off, balancing between sleep and consciousness with an effort akin to hypnotization.

All the ingredients are there: the growing silence, the soft moans of the porch swing and the gentle back and forth of her own body. Or maybe,  _she's_  trying to charm mother nature, to convince her that she belongs amongst the evergreens and the clean air belongs in her lungs.

She realizes this must be what it feels like to be content, to be able to fall asleep in the calm of the moment.

However, with that knowledge at the surface of her psyche, certain memories still linger close to the surface reminding her to not do that.

You can take the detective out of the city, but you can't take the detective out of the person.

She tentatively re-opens her eyes and tucks a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear and a trace of a smile graces her lips. Some days she must remind herself that she made it. Some people don't ever find this sort of distant comfort. Some people don't make it this far in life in her …former line of work.

The dark red and orange gleams of light behind the trees ahead capture her attention once more. However, it's another breeze that whips through her sleeveless, blue and white floral dress that causes her to wrap her arms around her middle.

She pulls her legs up and crosses them Indian style over the wooden seat. With her head resting against the back support, she admires the thousands of trees that line the horizon.

It's so different from what she is used to but she's grown accustomed to admiring their presence, something she had never done much of in her lifetime, until now. She'd gone camping a few times as an adolescent but other memories of her mother and her childhood seem to fog over anything worthwhile.

But now she's …. comfortable. The evening is…. serene.

Nevertheless, she still finds herself restless in this airy frontier that is NOT Manhattan. Not even New York. In moments like these where her body is relaxed and fatigue is whispering down her spine, she still feels the chill on her skin and the lingering silence.

It only takes moments before she's resting her bare feet on the old ligneous slats of the porch. The surface is still warm from the receding sunlight and the bottoms of her feet tingle with satisfaction.

Though for what she has in mind, she slips on her white sandals before walking inside briefly only to pull on a light sweater that had been resting on the back of her sofa. She easily slips back out through the screen door, and it still surprises her how accustomed she has become to this life.

It's so quiet. So unbelievably quiet.

Other than the birds chirping, grasshoppers singing, locusts beaming and lightning bugs flaring, it is calm and full of serenity out here.

She steps onto nature's playground with every motion and surprising even herself, she loves what it brings out of her every time. Sometimes she can't help but compare it to the life she used to have, but there's a semblance of peace that washes over her knowing what both worlds mean.

Stepping down the four small white porch steps, she walks down the gravel pathway that leads to the edge of her expansive yard and toward the old gravel road running in front of her home.

She'd probably consider herself crazy had this been someone she was watching from her detective point of view. However, she continues walking down the dusty road and watches as the glow of sundown blankets the landscape around her.

With each step, she takes in the solid white two-story home with the porch light that gives off the softest yellow glow. She takes note of how it illuminates the beautiful wrap around porch just enough so that she can see how her whole world sits in the middle of nothing but a vast sea of blue grass.

Her heart rate increases at the sight and she can't help but glance at it with each step she takes down the gravely road.

She counts her lucky stars that her destination isn't too far from the place she calls home, for she quickly comes upon the short trail she knows well near a shallow batch of trees to her right.

As she approaches it, she wonders why she finds herself leaving that comfort for the wildflowers and sky-scraper trees when she can't sleep or becomes restless.

Then she remembers the stream. She walks through the opening of trees and quickly locates the rock path insinuating a new, smaller trail just as the sun dips even lower against the horizon.

In that instant, she hears it. The soft melody of trickling water fills the air and she realizes that the stream represents continuum. It's not that cacophony of life, and people and industrialization. It's peace, self- preservation and evolution.

It all just keeps going and going, its path is tireless and its destination endless. It has no reasons to stop and every reason to keep moving on to a newer, better place and that's what she holds onto.

Her life will keep going even if she stops to take in her weary reflection in the surface of the water.

She wraps the sweater tightly around her and takes a deep breath of fresh forest air. As she strides idly amongst the low hanging branches, her eye catches the last gleam of sunlight as it sweeps against the surface of the water.

When she closes her eyes, it doesn't take much to remind her that there's no civilization for miles.

With that thought, she lifts one sandaled foot onto the first rock and walks across until she's at the edge of the small stream in front of her, about thirty yards from the edge of the road.

She lowers herself off the last rock, and passes through the last of the low-hanging tree branches when she comes around a large tree finally locating the intoxicating sound.

She sits on a large stone by the edge of the shallow water, and pulls her knees to her chest. She finds herself closing her eyes more these days even in this vestibule of the unknown, if only to listen to the one constant in her life.

The romance of it all sifts through the breeze and the rustle of leaves doesn't remind her of jingling keys anymore and the hard jaggedness of the rock doesn't remind her of a concrete basement floor.

She's a million miles away it seems.

So far from where she used to stand. So far away from everything that came before this. She has needed this in so many ways and she can't help but feel at ease out here, and so she listens to the sounds of this macrocosm surrounding her.

Moments later when she looks up to the sky, all sliver of light slowly disappears. Just as the mellow glow of the moon arrives, she quickly gets back to her feet and stretches with the subtle melody of the stream in the background.

She'd easily fall sleep to the cadence but no matter how transparent the trees are, she needs to be able to see the road.

Often on nights when she has a hard time sleeping, she'll grab her flashlight and stumble upon the same dusty path and free herself to the tiny rhythmic waves.

But some nights she can't shake the memories, and just needs a brief escape. She easily lifts herself onto the two-foot-high rock, following the short path through the branches and is back on the dirt road in seconds.

As she begins her short trek back towards the home she accompanies only with herself, she faintly hears a low rumble in the distance behind her.

She glances over her left shoulder not seeing anything but certainly hearing the crunching of tires in the distance. As if a protective cloak, she once again pulls her sweater tighter and lightly jogs back to her front porch taking two steps at a time.

She often finds herself in detective mode more times than not, and she must remind herself that it doesn't matter if no one hardly drives on this road. It's a self-defense mode she goes into when she remembers that nothing is as calm as it seems.

It doesn't matter if she and maybe only two other people venture down the rocky surface on any given day nor does the fact that usually the days and nights pass without a single dust particle lifting from the surface.

The fact of the matter is her closest neighbors live about three quarters of a mile down and town sits a bit further at about two and a half.

So as the crunching of tires gets closer, her body tenses as she drifts through her screen door, gently pulling it closed behind her. She stands quietly in the dark and watches as a set of headlights appear in the near distance.

The gravel popping and cracking under each rubber tire is the only sound in the desolate area so she can tell how close it's getting. Several seconds later, she squints her eyes through the dark, taking in the details of the dark red pickup truck with light mud slashes on the side facing her just as it slows precariously close to where she can see these details.

The pick-up truck rolls closer and she veers off to the side of the doorway as it slows to a stop near the front of her house.

Her home is completely dark except for the plug-in candle sitting in the window directly above the front porch that you can reach as you go up the staircase inside her home.

And as if on cue, the bright red break lights gleam against the midnight blue of evening just at the edge of her drive way.

It sits there a few moments, dust rising in front of the red brake lights and for a minute she wonders if anyone is going to get out. The thought causes her throat to dry and after a few moments she tells herself she should breathe.

To her relief, the truck begins to move again and she lets out a sigh of relief as she closes the front door and bolts it. It's so quiet out here on some instances, and when it becomes dark, she tries not to blame herself when she freaks out over an alien vehicle that will occasionally venture out her way.

She's not apprehensive about these people, it's just the phantoms of her past. It's also just the possibility of being found and her contentment being interrupted by visitors that ruffles her resolve.

She toes off her sandals by the front door, checking the locks once more, before she trots down the hallway toward her living room. As she enters, she notices the shear white curtains flowing in whimsical waves as a breeze slips in through the bottom of her floor to ceiling window.

The white material reminds her of the day she had to buy a new set of curtains a few weeks ago when she'd fostered a small black and white kitten who had appeared on her front porch one day.

She'd been alone and the tiny animal, no more than a few months old itself, had given her the company she hadn't known she had needed. But it had eventually clawed its way up the shear material in fright of something in the house, ultimately ruining the old crème colored curtains.

Feeling as sorry for herself as for the kitten, she had put it outside in frustration and hadn't seen it since.

Now as she walks over to window, she pulls the curtain away, pushing down the pane as it closes out the chilly night air. The curtains immediately drop still against the window and the air inside the room becomes still.

She reaches up high and secures the locks on each side of the window before closing the curtains.

Picking up the remote off the coffee table, she settles down on the plush white sofa that sits in the center of the living room.

The grand entertainment center that holds her television immediately illuminates with color as she flips the television on. She sprawls her legs across the soft surface and pulls a small pillow under her head. The small blanket that rests against the back of the couch becomes her only accompaniment for the night as she throws it across her bare legs and pulls it just above her abdomen.

She blinks several times adjusting her eyes to the screen and turns it to a movie station, not even bothering to pay attention to what's playing.

Her eyes drift close and she listens to the silence because she can do that now. She keeps track of the soft hum of wind that still seeps in through the window, the soft buzz of the fridge just in the kitchen a few feet away, the soft click of the cuckoo clock in the hallway and the gentle creaks of the house settling into itself.

It all lulls her into a lethargic bliss.

The hum of her own breathing begins to fade as sleep inevitably surrounds her. The low voices continue to pour from her television and she quietly revels in the soothing timbres.

Much like the dissonance of Manhattan, the cluster of voices on screen eventually follow her into her dreams.

...

The sunshine infiltrates into her living room, shining directly onto her tan face. She pulls the blanket from around her feet and rests it over her eyes to block out the golden rays.

Faint chirping seeps inside, and it's then she realizes that she had slept through the night.

Though, she must've turned her television off half asleep at some point because the screen is black and her remote sits in the center of her glass coffee table.

She rolls onto her side and snuggles into her blanket, closing her eyes again to let sleep overtake her.

Minutes pass and she's almost gone again when she hears a familiar crunching noise just outside her window. Even in the confines of her living room, she can hear the subtle sounds of a vehicle approaching again with clarity.

Tiredly, she sits up on the couch and just listens. Realizing it sounds like it's getting closer, she treads to the window she closed the night before and peers outside, looking in both directions.

The dust billows up in the air to her left and she can't see it until it's only a few feet from her driveway. But there, in broad daylight, is the same dark red truck that drove by slowly the night before.

She quickly maneuvers toward the front door, slides her sandals back on and runs toward the small table in the hall to get her keys to the jeep parked in the car port on the side of the house.

The knocks on her front door come as fast as she feels she's moving. In that moment, she realizes it's the first sounds she's heard in months that have come from someone outside.

With no real plan of action, she notes the quickening of her pulse and silently kicks herself for overreacting. She had considered briefly just letting whoever it was believe she wasn't home.

However, with the passing weeks, cabin fever has started to set in and she decides to go against her rationale and open the door.

It could be important, though she realizes the unlikeliness of that as soon as she thinks it since she doesn't really know anyone around here, so whatever is, it's most likely beyond her control.

As she ponders what to do, she hears soft knocking again against the heavy front door. Taking a deep breath, she fights off the lingering anxiety of someone invading her serenity and walks back down the short hallway before lightly touching the doorknob.

She looks down at her car keys and debates once again whether to just make whoever it is think no one is home.

A few more seconds pass and then the front porch creaks loudly right in front of her.

Slowly, she cracks open the door and peers through the glass of the screen.

She's immediately greeted with the back of a tall, muscular man wearing a white cowboy hat as he walks back toward the pickup.

She pushes through the screen door, and steps out into the open just as he's about to reach for the truck handle. She crosses her arms and gently clears her throat, "Can I help you?"

The man stops in his tracks at the sound of her voice and briskly turns around facing her. He's as surprised as she is to hear her voice.

"Hello, ma'am. Sorry to bother you. I know it's early but I was wondering if there was a phone I could use. See I live about a mile down, " he says pointing to his right, "and we've been without power for the past few days. We can't even get cell phone signal out here and getting the power company out here is liking pulling teeth," he says with a slight twang. "I mean," he continues, "but if it is a problem, I understand, I hear there's a town right up the road," he replies looking down at his dark blue jeans and brown leather boots. He lifts his eyes back up from underneath his solid white cowboy hat that has a brown rope around the crown and gives her a timid smile with a set of perfect white teeth that match his hat.

She takes a deep breath and walks toward the edge of the porch before focusing back on him.

She's leery about letting strange men come into her house even out here, even as calm as it is, especially out here, in essentially the middle of nowhere. Plus, she's in no physical position to fight off anyone. Her gun is locked in her box upstairs and she's not sure of her reflexes this early in the morning.

He seems innocent enough though and it does sound like he is from around here and not some curious passerby stopping by for chit chat. He does have a nice smile….

Not one to let her guard down, she looks up to the sky and the sun shines down on them both as she glances at his upper arms that glisten with a light sheen of sweat.

The muscles that protrude from underneath his tan t-shirt accentuate the deep tan that runs along his arms from what appears to be hours of working outside.

She brushes a hand through her hair contemplating what to tell him.

"Well," she starts in a soft voice. Clearing her voice, she adds, "Not to be the bearer of bad news, I'd appreciate if you'd send the power company my way as well. I heard that big storm blew some lines down. I'm sorry," she squints at him sadly as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

She hadn't been affected as much by the storm, however it's true she doesn't have a land line phone service. She hasn't bothered with it since moving in but she mentally kicks herself for it though, because that really is the last thing she wants to share with a strange man- that she has little to no contact with the town nearby.

She thinks of her lock-box key in her pocket then. Time to get her piece out of the closet when he leaves. Old habits die hard.

The man in the cowboy hat nods anyways and she can see the slight lift of his lips. She's caught off guard when he walks forward with an outstretched hand.

She hesitantly lifts her hand to his as he takes it with his and looks at her with his piercing hazel eyes. He shakes her hand gently and then lets if go before speaking,

"No, not a problem. I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am. I'm sure there are places in town where I can call the electric company. But thank you anyway," he smiles at her and starts to walk away. Before he gets far he whips around and holds out his hand to her once again. "I'm sorry, but I'm Dominick. Nice to meet you."

She reaches for his hand again giving him a small smile of her own while he nervously shakes her hand. "No, I'm sorry I couldn't be of any help," she says hesitantly and he nods and starts to walk away again. "Oh," she calls out, "I'm Olivia..."

He takes his hat off, putting it against his chest as he nods toward the ground slightly. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Olivia. You have a nice day." A small, albeit disappointed smile graces his lips once again as he positions his hat back on his short brown hair that is tinged with the slightest bit of gray. He walks back toward the driver side of the truck and then pulls away within moments.

Olivia stands there watching for a few seconds as the tires of the old truck roll over the gravel road sending a soft plume of dust into the air. As the tail end of the truck disappears into the afternoon, she breathes a sigh of relief and wipes her brow with the back of her hand thankful for the umpteenth time that this isn't the city.

Maybe the quietness of South Dakota isn't so bad after all.

tbc.


	2. Chapter 2: Deja Vu

Chapter 2: Deja Vu

The flashbacks are not as bad as they once were. 

They had occurred less and less once she had immersed herself in a world outside the chaos of Manhattan. They had been bearable, in a sense, when she met someone.

He had been a distraction despite the frequent flashbacks when she had first moved here ….because she had still been numb, raw and ashamed then.

That was three years ago.

She’d never be one to tell a survivor that their pain would disappear because of someone in their life, but she’d tell them that it helps some people. Including herself. In the sweet inflection of his voice and the shimmering gleam of hazel eyes, she found something…

Not just something but the answer she hadn’t wanted to accept at the time. Freedom from a hold she had on herself but wanted to blame on the blue. It was the Hazel glimmer she had let in, the Hazel gleam just like the one she saw this morning in Dominick’s eyes.

But Dominick was merely an illusion. Not him.

She’d been in a haze since she had met him and even the most acquired therapist wouldn’t second guess her reasons for it. Her heart was in a different place and she no longer had to feel the constant ebb of emotions that flagged her consciousness after that day. 

Her frontal cortex was loosening its grip on the memories of being surrounded by the cold concrete and army of shadows that danced around her as she listened to a nightstick clang against the cages. 

Now, it’s different. They are so different. Her life and the memories. They’re a spastic mixture of her old life and her new one, with newer visions, hurt and memories overwhelming her some days. The old memories still linger and pull at her veins like a tether but she reels in the aftermath of that day.

She overcame the largest obstacle, and now she’s surviving, because of the life she’s built here.

She might have even said she was thriving here at one point in time. South Dakota.

The fresh air of the new state and one of the only men she had ever let get close had slowly pulled her out of the dark hole she had been trapped in.

Brady, the man who walked into her life the week she moved to South Dakota, had walked into her life then, and in all likelihood, would essentially never leave again.

Only months prior to meeting him, her life had changed. The survival mode her mind had grappled with told her the truth. She had to leave New York City. 

She had to leave the place she had lived her entire life, she had to leave that comfort of familiarity, the job... Everything. Everyone.

Taking sexual predators off the streets wasn't what was keeping her together anymore, it was what was putting her into her own personal hell. Because, she hadn't kept the predators away. Away from others, maybe. But from herself?

No. She had failed.

Lowell Harris had taken away her fight, her drive, and her conscience.

And what pissed her off the most is that he took away from her when she had prided on the fact that she could keep him from doing so. He was in jail. He was the one behind bars, no longer able to hurt. 

But in her mind, he had won and she hates him for it because in the end she still lost her comfort, familiarity, her partner.

He hadn't even raped her but he had taken so much from her emotionally that she knew; she knew only a few months after it all happened that she had to get away. For how long, she had no idea.

Being trapped in that dark, musty basement with nowhere to go, clung in the back of her every thought. 

But, she did make it out and she’s beginning to realize that again, especially within the last few weeks, months because she’s fallen a bit. 

She’s digressed and through this new numbness she reminds herself that she made it then, and she can make it now. She’s currently standing in front of her foggy bathroom mirror, freshly showered and taking in the woman standing before her.

She looks at her reflection. She is Olivia Benson still. Olivia Benson, the daughter of a drunk. Olivia Benson, the daughter of a literary scholar. Olivia Benson, the Siena Grad. Olivia Benson, the nurturer. Olivia Benson, the woman. 

One thing she can't seem to make herself out to be still is Olivia Benson, the Detective. The cop.

That is one of the many precious things she feels was stolen from her and the thought makes her angry again. She sees her lips purse in the reflection staring back, her cheeks become rosier and her eyes slant. 

She counts to ten, takes a deep breath and shakes her head. She wipes away the lingering moisture on the surface of the mirror, and forces herself to look away from the person staring back at her.

With Brady, she had told him everything. She had confided in him something she had struggled to do before. She had struggled to come to term with the fact she told someone else before she told …. Him.

After it all had come out of her mouth, it was like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. It was easier to breathe. She had spoken truths that had been inside for years. 

His words of encouragement held power and he had been everything she had needed to get back on track, at least by her standards.

And in all of that support, comfort and love that she had been just out of reach of back in New York, she finally realized how much she had changed from the cop, to this woman standing before her.

She still sees Brady standing on the sidewalk leading to her porch…. It had only been her third day in South Dakota, still in the process of moving into her new apartment. He had been driving down her street looking for her house. To Olivia’s surprise, the college friend who she’d met up with had sent him over. 

Luckily, she had come out of the door, struggling with her mattress just as he was driving by for the third or fourth time, and finally stopped. Her apartment had only been a single story ranch in the heart of town then. She smiles at the simplicity of it all. It had been so easy to accept her friends scheme to introduce them, it had been too easy to move all her things thousands of miles of away, and it had been too easy to let him in. 

And that was the hardest part, accepting that she’d done it so easily when she wanted to tighten that tether to Manhattan for safe keeping.

His dark hair, wide smile, beautifully deep voice and tan cowboy hat, had immediately caught her attention. He was built from solid muscle, all six feet of him and she could never forget the way he felt against her palms as she helped him push and pull her belongings into the house.

In all the swirling haze of a life involving Brady, she hadn't had any vivid flashbacks of the prison for a little over two years…. until moments ago. She had been washing her hair when she remembered the prison showers and the bright orange jumpsuit that had been laid out for her. She gasped, dropping her body wash and wash cloth on the floor.

Random pieces of that memory flit through her mind always, and just enough of them linger there to remind her that it was a big stamp in her history, her story.

Looking back to her reflection in the mirror, the mid-morning sun gleams through the white blinds of the small bathroom window, casting bright white and yellow rays across the white walls, with crème rose border around the large bathroom. She pushes a wet strand of dark brown hair from her lips and tightly wraps her green, fluffy towel around her body.

Taking a deep breath, she steps away from the mirror and heads toward her bedroom across the hall. Small puddles of water collect on the hardwood floor as she tiptoes with damp feet across the surface and imagines how the wood has sustained so much in this old house.

Brady hated that the wood floors weren't in prime condition. 

It had been his intention to replace the floors after they moved in and always cursed at the water damage each time he saw it because the previous owner had failed to have it fixed after a bad storm one year.

She had never minded it. 

As she enters her bedroom, she's still glancing back at the wet footprints when the silence around her is crashed by a distinct clang in the distance.

Oh my God, she whispers to herself.

Bells. Extremely large bells, she realizes. As she remembers that very sound from a handful of years ago, she closes her eyes and envisions a peculiar place. Church bells. Even though she lives a mile from town, through the silence and space of the open landscape around her, the distinct sound travels all the way to her bedroom.

She turns around, still clad in a towel, and sits on the edge of her bed letting the sound stir up a vivid memory of the day she first heard them...

"Hurry, you're getting all wet!" Brady exclaims standing on the sidewalk underneath the large awning set outside the church.

"I’m moving as fast as I can,” she laughs as she lightly jogs from her position beside his car toward the awning in front of the church. “I’m beginning to regret trading in boots for these heels," she chides back at him instantly picking up the irony of her own words. She used to run in heels, boots, but heels. 

The rain comes down in steady slants and her long, light pink dress clings to her legs as she holds a stack of newspaper over her head as shelter from the downpour.

“I’d have brought an umbrella, but it wasn’t supposed to rain today,” he offers as a peace offering. 

Trying a new approach, she dips her head and rushes toward where he’s standing, “This is useless," she laughs, shrugging the soggy paper in front of her. “It’s not the rain that gets me, it’s the mess I look like now. You could have told me it was okay to dress casual,” she jokingly chastises. 

“I didn’t want to ruin your excitement,” he grins.

She drops the paper from above her head and steps under the awning next to him. It’d be hard to not notice that he’s soaked too but he stands next to her happy to have her there with him in the rain, on a Sunday morning at a small town church.

It’s enough to make her reach for his face, gently caress his cheek before nodding toward the entrance.

She watches as he smiles down at her, and she can feel the wet hair sticking to her face and knowing how she must look. He gently brushes it away with his index finger. She looks up to him as his smile falters a small bit.

"This is going real well,” he jokes. “Dates seem to flee after the first time, so maybe this is a sign?” he smiles cheekily.

She narrows her eyes at him and then smiles. "Date? I knew it," she states in small triumph. Her smile for him falters when his eyes become intense.

Clearing his throat he steps closer to her. His movement causes her back to straighten and heart to quicken. "I uh, know this is going to sound …. I don’t know… I just really wanted to hang out. But, the rain..." he lifts his shoulders and tilts head.

Looking into his bright, hazel eyes, she turns her head away and smirks at his nervousness.

Turning back toward him, she offers him an out.

"Hang out? We are like forty," she grins. "It’s okay, Brady. Church is a good place to start," she offers sincerely. Despite her own reservations with organized religion, she knows her place within and tries to make him feel better. "For the record, you can’t control Mother Nature. She’s going to do whatever she pleases," she jokes as she squeezes his upper arm.

He nods with a new confidence and as they start to walk up the short sidewalk, the loud clang of the overhead church bell startles them both and stops them in their tracks. 

"Uh, guess we're late, huh?" he laughs as they stand and wait for the bell to stop ringing. On the tenth ring, he touches the small her of her back, leading her toward the entrance. The light pressure of his touch sends a shockwave through her and she focuses her eyes forward, but she can feel his eyes on her wet face. 

She knows he doesn’t realize what’s happened. She’s remembering. It’s as simple a gesture as was the day she remembers the last time someone touched her in such an innocently comforting way. 

Except this isn’t during a case. It isn’t. 

A small sad smile transpires as quickly as it fades across her lips and she shakes the memory and image. She turns slightly, grasping his floating hand and he interlocks their fingers before guiding her into the beautifully lit auditorium of the church.

The people are warm and welcoming when the service ends and as the church goers slowly disperse from the auditorium, she still sits quietly next to Brady who has his head bowed next to her.

She imagines he's saying last minute thanks and prayers and it feels familiar and she knows exactly why, but doesn't think too much of it. As he continues to bow, she looks up to the lavishly painted windows high on the walls of the auditorium. The intricately shaped windows and colored panes send speckles of colors across the many surfaces of the room.

The podium where the priest had spoken sits abandoned now on the small stage in front of the many pews. It's all set up very beautifully and religious beliefs or not, she feels safe here and immediately understands why people get married in places like these.

She's not one to believe in fancy, religious oriented ceremonies and her own faith has been shaken in the past, but she has faith in this place.

She looks back at Brady and he sits up straight. He looks over to her and smiles as he arches his back. "You ready, Miss Olivia?"

"Always," she says quietly with a small smile.

"Okay," he nods, then slowly stands, "how about lunch and then I can take you home? That alright?" he asks cautiously.

"That's sounds great. I’ve always heard that Sundays are the Lord’s Day, I wouldn’t want to take up too much of your time," she offers.

"Don’t worry," he laughs offering her his hand. She takes it and as he leads her outside she is immediately greeted with the magnificent shade of blue in the sky as the noon sun appears from behind the array of gray clouds from the earlier rain.

He helps her into the front seat of his jeep and quickly jumps into the driver's side, pulling out of the church parking lot and into the open dust roads that are now a slush mud and rock.

They had headed off into what had turned out to be the first of many Sundays together.

Her eyes slide open begrudgingly as she remembers a time when it was all so new. Her heart thumps wildly at the memory and she can't help but let go of a tear filled smile. As she unwraps her towel from around her now dry body, she sits naked on her bed and stares ahead at the fading memory.

She slowly stands up and walks over to her white dresser to pull out some fresh clothes for the day. She's not sure why, but she's feeling lace is a must and the thought of it under her clothes sends a surprising flutter of excitement.

The thought quickly floats through her mind as she feels the air surround her bare body, causing gooseflesh to form on her sensitized skin. After opening the top drawer, her hand stops midair when she sees a familiar item resting neatly atop her underclothes inside.

She picks up the silver picture frame and holds it with both hands in front of her chest.

As she looks down at the faces peering at her from behind the glass, she can't help but smile. His arms are wrapped around her shoulders in the photo as she sits between his legs on her front porch. He had his signature cowboy hat on too and her hair is long and wavy but it’s the bright smile she’s sporting that reminds her of the past. 

That picture was taken two years ago, almost a year into their relationship…. and she's been living here for only a few months and the thought that this is the only picture of him on the property is almost more than she can take.

It had been great timing for them to move in together. They'd been with each other essentially the past two years, ever since that day at church.

With that thought, she carefully sits the frame back down on-top of the dresser and reaches into her top drawer to gather her clothing in an immediate need to get dressed.

It's amazing how much can change in such a short period of time, and how memories can be so vivid years later, the good and the bad ones. Yet, she recounts to herself sadly, it's the good ones that never seem to last forever she realizes as she pulls a light summer dress over her head and a lone tear slides down her rosy cheek.

Tbc.


End file.
